![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naomikritzerI was thinking the other day about the steps of Fringe addiction.
First, you live in Minneapolis or St. Paul and know there's this thing called the Minnesota Fringe. Maybe you even know it happens in August. You occasionally think about going, but there's so much and it's confusing and you might wind up having to watch mime.
Then, you have a friend with a show who hounds you into coming. So you see your friend's show and it's not bad and WOW it's cheap for live theater.
The next year you pay attention when your friends who go to Fringe talk about what's good and go to the thing they've been raving about. Then, since you have a button and you're at a venue, you see something else you've heard about. And the thing your friends told you was awesome is TOTALLY AWESOME and you really liked the other thing you saw, too.
So then the next year you realize that the people who staged that awesome thing from last year, have a NEW thing this year. And the people who did that other thing you saw -- THEY have a new show, too. And so you make plans to go to both, and while you're waiting in line you ask the people nearby whether there's anything else awesome you should see and then you go home and check the Fringe website for reviews and see a couple other things because they're reviewed so well.
And then the next year you've got this HUGE list of things you already know you want to see, and maybe you go to the Fringe for All previews and add a bunch more items to the list...
And eventually you buy an Ultrapass.
We don't have Ultrapasses yet but that's because of childcare issues.
Anyway, reviews of everything I've seen so far are below the cut. The short version: if you're in Minneapolis/St. Paul and you have kids, you should take them to "Story Time Time Bomb" and "Open and Affirming Fairy Tales."
Communopoly
This is worth seeing for the Josef Stalin puppet alone. It's funny; Ed thought it had moments of brilliance but never quite came together. I know what he means -- it's funny but not 100% cohesive. The scene changes take too long. But it's still a lot of fun.
Princess Jessica and the Kingdom of Boogers
One of the things you'll notice is that every year there are certain trends. The Fringe is not curated -- which is to say, they do a random draw of groups that apply for space, with a secondary draw for shows that are specifically kids' shows (they try to have a good set of kids' shows every year) or something like that. So these trends are either the result of a lot of artists having the same ideas, or some funny luck with the lottery. One of the themes this year in the Kid's Fringe was bathroom humor. Go figure. (With the adult shows, there seems to be a lot of nudity. Presumably bathroom humor is the age-appropriate equivalent.)
This looked really promising in the previews (I went to one of the Fringe For All sessions, where you got three minutes of dozens of different plays). It starts out REALLY strong -- I really, really loved the first 20 minutes. It started to drag later on but was still pretty good.
Open and Affirming Fairy Tales
I had two worries about this show: (1) that it would be totally didactic, or (2) that it would act as if having two dads was in itself hilarious. It avoided both of these pitfalls and is really a great children's show -- very gay-friendly but not focused exclusively on gayness. The message (there definitely is one) is that you should be true to yourself. FYI, kids who arrive on the early side often get to be in the final scene.
Story Time Time Bomb
Created by some people from fandom -- I think the guy who does the art was also the guy who drew Connie (the Convergence mascot). This show is AWESOME. It includes some really excellent audience participation stuff (they solicit ideas from the kids, which then get incorporated; when they asked for suggestions of clothing for the Big Bad, Molly raised her hand and said, "Armor made from human bones." Tim, the writer/producer turned to her and said, "Wow. Don't take this the wrong way, but you are one seriously creepy kid.")
MisMatched
So, one of the other odd themes, along with scatological humor, is the trope in which football is the Manly Thing that the Manly Dad wants his sensitive, artistic son to do. That was the storyline in one of the Open and Affirming Fairy Tales, and that was one of the subplots in MisMatched.
(Oddly, I am not finding a description of this trope on tvtropes. I can't explain this lack. It's not like the Minnesota Fringe invented this storyline.)
Anyway, I was not blown away by MisMatched. It was OK, and the audience participation element was fun; I might have liked it better if I hadn't seen it back-to-back with Open & Affirming Fairy Tales.
Finally, the three adult shows I've seen so far:
War of the Posers
I saw this with my parents. It's a show about organizational politics -- a small English town is holding a festival, the elite have gathered to plan it, and everyone hates everyone else so things go awry. I had trouble following what was going on; it was in the Rarig Arena, which is a theater in the round (MisMatched, Open & Affirming Fairy Tales, and Story Time Time Bomb are also in there). The very first scene had two characters who were right by me but with their backs to me so I couldn't see which was speaking when, and that set the stage for a lot of what happened and the net result was that I may have been missing some key information. The British accents were well done, which was good. Badly done accents really bug the hell out of me.
Cosmo the Musical or How to Ruin Your Life by Having Unrealistic Expectations
A musical about two women who share an apartment and take Cosmopolitan magazine much too seriously. This show was hilarious but is much better if you're female, I think.
Missing: the fantastical and true story of my father's disappearance and what I found when I looked for him
I made time to see this today because I've seen Jessica Ferris perform before (she had a show in the 2005 Fringe) and I really liked that show. This is a play about her discovery (from talking to lots of family members) that her father was (and is) a con man (as are several other male relatives). It's hilarious and unnerving by turns. I thought it was really awesome.
Ed's reviews of the kid shows are here.
First, you live in Minneapolis or St. Paul and know there's this thing called the Minnesota Fringe. Maybe you even know it happens in August. You occasionally think about going, but there's so much and it's confusing and you might wind up having to watch mime.
Then, you have a friend with a show who hounds you into coming. So you see your friend's show and it's not bad and WOW it's cheap for live theater.
The next year you pay attention when your friends who go to Fringe talk about what's good and go to the thing they've been raving about. Then, since you have a button and you're at a venue, you see something else you've heard about. And the thing your friends told you was awesome is TOTALLY AWESOME and you really liked the other thing you saw, too.
So then the next year you realize that the people who staged that awesome thing from last year, have a NEW thing this year. And the people who did that other thing you saw -- THEY have a new show, too. And so you make plans to go to both, and while you're waiting in line you ask the people nearby whether there's anything else awesome you should see and then you go home and check the Fringe website for reviews and see a couple other things because they're reviewed so well.
And then the next year you've got this HUGE list of things you already know you want to see, and maybe you go to the Fringe for All previews and add a bunch more items to the list...
And eventually you buy an Ultrapass.
We don't have Ultrapasses yet but that's because of childcare issues.
Anyway, reviews of everything I've seen so far are below the cut. The short version: if you're in Minneapolis/St. Paul and you have kids, you should take them to "Story Time Time Bomb" and "Open and Affirming Fairy Tales."
Communopoly
This is worth seeing for the Josef Stalin puppet alone. It's funny; Ed thought it had moments of brilliance but never quite came together. I know what he means -- it's funny but not 100% cohesive. The scene changes take too long. But it's still a lot of fun.
Princess Jessica and the Kingdom of Boogers
One of the things you'll notice is that every year there are certain trends. The Fringe is not curated -- which is to say, they do a random draw of groups that apply for space, with a secondary draw for shows that are specifically kids' shows (they try to have a good set of kids' shows every year) or something like that. So these trends are either the result of a lot of artists having the same ideas, or some funny luck with the lottery. One of the themes this year in the Kid's Fringe was bathroom humor. Go figure. (With the adult shows, there seems to be a lot of nudity. Presumably bathroom humor is the age-appropriate equivalent.)
This looked really promising in the previews (I went to one of the Fringe For All sessions, where you got three minutes of dozens of different plays). It starts out REALLY strong -- I really, really loved the first 20 minutes. It started to drag later on but was still pretty good.
Open and Affirming Fairy Tales
I had two worries about this show: (1) that it would be totally didactic, or (2) that it would act as if having two dads was in itself hilarious. It avoided both of these pitfalls and is really a great children's show -- very gay-friendly but not focused exclusively on gayness. The message (there definitely is one) is that you should be true to yourself. FYI, kids who arrive on the early side often get to be in the final scene.
Story Time Time Bomb
Created by some people from fandom -- I think the guy who does the art was also the guy who drew Connie (the Convergence mascot). This show is AWESOME. It includes some really excellent audience participation stuff (they solicit ideas from the kids, which then get incorporated; when they asked for suggestions of clothing for the Big Bad, Molly raised her hand and said, "Armor made from human bones." Tim, the writer/producer turned to her and said, "Wow. Don't take this the wrong way, but you are one seriously creepy kid.")
MisMatched
So, one of the other odd themes, along with scatological humor, is the trope in which football is the Manly Thing that the Manly Dad wants his sensitive, artistic son to do. That was the storyline in one of the Open and Affirming Fairy Tales, and that was one of the subplots in MisMatched.
(Oddly, I am not finding a description of this trope on tvtropes. I can't explain this lack. It's not like the Minnesota Fringe invented this storyline.)
Anyway, I was not blown away by MisMatched. It was OK, and the audience participation element was fun; I might have liked it better if I hadn't seen it back-to-back with Open & Affirming Fairy Tales.
Finally, the three adult shows I've seen so far:
War of the Posers
I saw this with my parents. It's a show about organizational politics -- a small English town is holding a festival, the elite have gathered to plan it, and everyone hates everyone else so things go awry. I had trouble following what was going on; it was in the Rarig Arena, which is a theater in the round (MisMatched, Open & Affirming Fairy Tales, and Story Time Time Bomb are also in there). The very first scene had two characters who were right by me but with their backs to me so I couldn't see which was speaking when, and that set the stage for a lot of what happened and the net result was that I may have been missing some key information. The British accents were well done, which was good. Badly done accents really bug the hell out of me.
Cosmo the Musical or How to Ruin Your Life by Having Unrealistic Expectations
A musical about two women who share an apartment and take Cosmopolitan magazine much too seriously. This show was hilarious but is much better if you're female, I think.
Missing: the fantastical and true story of my father's disappearance and what I found when I looked for him
I made time to see this today because I've seen Jessica Ferris perform before (she had a show in the 2005 Fringe) and I really liked that show. This is a play about her discovery (from talking to lots of family members) that her father was (and is) a con man (as are several other male relatives). It's hilarious and unnerving by turns. I thought it was really awesome.
Ed's reviews of the kid shows are here.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
War of the Posers
Date: 2010-08-08 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-08 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-08 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-08 02:02 pm (UTC)If you've always wanted to dip your toe into Fringe waters, here is my advice: today's weather is going to be miserably hot and humid. The Rarig has four stages which makes it easy to just go from show to show to show. Look online at what's playing there today, and then go over there this afternoon and see some stuff that sounds interesting.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-08 10:36 am (UTC)Chris is now reading and enjoying "Freedom's Gate". Hurrah!
no subject
Date: 2010-08-08 06:39 pm (UTC)